"Unleashing the creators and going full-throttle."

Giovani Lo Celso and Tanguy Ndombele.

A thread:

For a while, Spurs fans have been desperately waiting to see a system where Gio and Ndombele play together. It is expected that in our strongest 11, the midfield will be Gio-Højbjerg-Ndombele.

But, how far are we from it?
Why haven't we seen it yet?
Will we see it?

Read on:

Individual profiles:

Gio:
Can receive the ball from deep, and drive forwards.
Can make late runs into the box and find himself in scoring positions.
Can play line-breaking passes. Has the vision, but needs to work on the execution.
Tracks back aggressively.
Tireless work-rate.

Ndombele:
Driving forward with the ball.
Quick, line-breaking passing.
Pirouettes, Roulettes, and superior shielding of the ball.
Absolutely press-resistant.
Improving his off-ball work-rate (VERY CRUCIAL)

On the ball, you can't dispossess him, UNLESS he loses it by himself.

Jose had to play Lo Celso in a deeper role last season because of his unbelievable work-rate. He never stopped pressing, tracked back, made clever fouls, and forced the opposition out of possession.

After retrieving the ball, again, the play went through Gio, who drove forward.

Ideally, that deep-lying ball-carrier role would suit the best for Ndombele. But, due to fitness issues, and the need for improving his off-ball effort, Lo Celso had to be played there.

You've to feel for Gio as people don't really understand how well he adapted to that role.

Lo Celso's true position is the one where he played against Maccabi this season.

It's clear that:

A: He can score A LOT if he gets in those positions.
B: His role last season helped him to excel in ball retrieving. Hence, he can now aggressively win the ball high up the pitch.

Now that Lo Celso's role is truly fixed, let's go back to Tanguy, who has been doing remarkably well since the start of this season. Every single fan must be proud of him for not backing down and working really hard, especially off-ball.

With the ball, he was always a gem.

The problem for Ndombele was that when he joined Spurs, the expectations that fans had on him was to succeed Mousa Dembele.

Indeed, both have a similar profile in terms of dribbling, press-resistance, and forward drives.

But, Dembele's off-ball work-rate is truly unmatchable.

Furthermore, Dembele had a PROPER ball-winning midfielder like Wanyama to support him defensively.

"Prime Spurs" under Poch had a perfect balance. A destroyer, a carrier, creator, and a raumdeuter (Space exploiter, Dele)

But clearly, those profile players are no longer here.

Ndombele had no help last season in the possession retrieving aspect. Winks is too passive, Sissoko is robust, but dubious after he gets the ball back.

There was a need for someone who posed a mix of calmness, physicality, defensive know-how, & simplicity.

So, we got Højbjerg.

I will not take too long to talk about Pierre because I've already written an entire thread on him. But, you can see that he was exactly what we needed in the midfield. https://twitter.com/FTHeritage/status/1309109651087208448?s=20

We used to have a lopsided attack with Davies forming a back-three and Aurier pushing wide. Not anymore.

Since we've got two fullbacks who can attack and Højbjerg who is a proper ball-recoverer, the lopsided build-up is finally gone.

You can already see that. We've moved on.

Højbjerg drops deep to form a back-three with the two CBs. And Hugo now has options to build attacks from the back or spread the play wide to the FBs.

With so much clarity over who does what, Ndombele was finally integrated back into the squad, and he has been doing really well.

His movement off-ball is allowing Pierre to find simple passes to play through the middle. We no longer have to "go long" to Kane in every goal kick.

Now, we have the personnel to play the kind of football that not only lets us dominate games, but also appeal to the eyes.

Now, to the main part of the thread. How far are we from Gio and Ndombele playing together?

The answer to that lies on Tanguy's shoulders. He must show that we don't need a "robust, physical" midfielder like Sissoko in the 3-man midfield to cover for him. He is getting there.

Don't worry about the need for creativity during build-ups/counter because we have Kane's unreal vision to take care of incisive passing.

When Gio and Tanguy are in the team, expect the Frenchman to play the quick-pass to Kane, Kane spreading play to the flanks, and Gio scoring.

The main issue with playing Gio and Tanguy together is that there is no "punch" bring off the bench if the initial gameplan doesn't work.

Leaving one of Gio or Tanguy on the bench gives us the chance to change games and deploy a Plan B.

This is where Dele's development comes in

Mourinho said that a squad is a puzzle.

To free Tanguy, we needed Pierre. To drop the lopsided build-up, we needed Reguilon. To give a different attacking dimension up top as a "proper" target-man, we needed Vinicius.

Same way, to see Gio x Ndombele, we need Dele to develop.

Say we play Gio and Ndombele in the league, what do we do for midfield creativity and dynamism in the midweek Europa League games?

The option left is to play a midfield of Sissoko, Winks, and Dele. This is where Dele should step-up and take initiative.

If Dele doesn't show that he CAN be counted on to be the main man in the attacking midfield department, then one of Lo Celso and Ndombele will have to play every game, even the Europa League ones.

But, the response we've seen from Dele has been great vs both Maccabi and United.

As much as we want to see Gio and Tanguy in the same team, there are a lot of things that go beyond them. So be patient, trust the development, and enjoy how this puzzle has been unfolding.

One thing is for sure though, Gio x Tanguy will be too good to stop when it happens.

That's pretty much it.

Likes and retweets are appreciated.

Again, I've written something fairly simple for people to understand, and I will keep reiterating that this is how I want my threads to be.

But I do hope that you take something good from this thread.

Cheers,
Soos.

As usual, I'm mentioning a few people who I hope don't miss this thread.

@thfcrueben @ValyrianCA @LeeMcQueen @cenkoza @NozAhmed @LlorisFC @EashN17 @sacramentoszn @RickSpur @LastWordOnSpurs